Ruff's Conundrum

[TheChimp]

We agree the NHL is the premier hockey venue in the world and it originated in North America - thx Canada! Like any team sport aptitude and skill is how you win it all! Fighting is a distraction that takes away from the aptitude and skill and mostly caused by a lack of timely officiating.

 

Earlier , that is before the swoon, Sabres were on their aptitude and skill game which they were 70% successful - NOT BAD!!! The talk of the NHL!

 

Methinks, the Sabres will recapture that hockey essence and it will provide the impetus for a claim to being the best at aptitude and skill leaving out the machismo headbashing to the inferior leagues!

 

GO Buffalo Sabres!!! GO USA!!!

Hockey without emotional outbursts is boring. Just like your posts.

[SabresRepublic]

Hockey without emotional outbursts is boring. Just like your posts.

 

Whoever said anything about playing hockey without emotion - doesn't happen!

On the other hand, outbursts are what aspiring hockey players do on their way to the professional aptitude and skill ranks! Eventually, we hope, they grow out of it! When they don't they don't play!

 

I don't think my posts are boring. Rather, methinks, they are spot on! You just can't handle rational analyses! So, go ahead, be bored! Emotional outbursts have no place on the ice when the NHL is in session!!! You can huff and puff all you like and you can illicit a sympathetic pat on the back from the goon squad ilk occasionally - long term, aptitude and skill prevail despite

the near term desire to play a hostile rendition of a class act sport!!!

[SabresRepublic]

Like I posted in another thread, the Sabres would be considered soft in the Swedish Elite-League, and that's stating facts. Some of those Euro elite leagues play a lot tougher than most people seem to think.

 

I can understand Ruff's approach to some of these things, like not taking penalties for the sake of being all badass motherf*ckers on the ice, but at some point there HAS to be a physical aspect to the game, and there isn't.

 

The Sabres have one of, if not the best penalty kills this season. If ever there was a time to not worry about an extra two penalties a game this is it. As long as they're good penalties, and not lazy stick penalties.

 

Which makes me think - When was the last time a Sabre took an elbowing or, god forbid, a roughing penalty? And that's a roughing penalty from open play, not one of those ridiculous coincidentals taken efter a shoving match. I can't for the life of me remember seeing one. It's always holding, tripping, hooking, slashing, interference.

 

 

Were Rivet, Connolly and Vanek following your suggestion tonight?

[Kristian]

Were Rivet, Connolly and Vanek following your suggestion tonight?

 

Yup.

 

Can't help it if the PK stinks though.

[TheChimp]

Whoever said anything about playing hockey without emotion - doesn't happen!

On the other hand, outbursts are what aspiring hockey players do on their way to the professional aptitude and skill ranks! Eventually, we hope, they grow out of it! When they don't they don't play!

 

I don't think my posts are boring. Rather, methinks, they are spot on! You just can't handle rational analyses! So, go ahead, be bored! Emotional outbursts have no place on the ice when the NHL is in session!!! You can huff and puff all you like and you can illicit a sympathetic pat on the back from the goon squad ilk occasionally - long term, aptitude and skill prevail despite

the near term desire to play a hostile rendition of a class act sport!!!

It's "elicit", not "illicit". Unless pats on the back are now illegal. And I know the difference between self-aggrandizing claptrap and rational analysis, give me SOME credit.

Hockey without fighting is boring.

 

So, back on point. Ruff's conundrum is multi-fold. First and most importantly, he doesn't have what it takes to turn petulant children into men. His players talk the talk of champions but walk the walk of spoiled little brats. Day after day, they talk about what they need to do out there, and night after miserable night, they fail utterly to DO IT.

 

Secondly, he's even ruining the tough veterans Darcy keeps getting him. Rivet, Montador, Grier, Lydman, seriously, WTF are these guys doing out there? Nothing good, that's obvious. These guys brought in to lead the young guys are falling right in line with the lazy, stupid play of said youngsters, and Lindy is watching it happen.

 

Honestly, Lindy should have quit when he basically TOLD everyone he would do just that when Drury and Briere were lost to free agency because of Darcy and Larry's combined idiocy.

 

Face it, Lindy's been coasting through HIS job worse than any of his stupid players ever do. The kids are going backwards in their development, not forwards.

 

My only hope is that the OTHER egomaniac in the organization, Darcy Regier, opens his eyes and sees that, if HIS little five-year plan has any hope of NOT crashing down like so much Hindenburg, he had better grow a pair and get a coach in here who can turn the tide on guys like Mac, Staff, Kennedy, Vanek, Pominville, Roy and get them to perform the way they are SUPPOSED to perform night in and night out, or we'll be calling for HIS head. Because his picks look like schoolyard punks out there, and the clock is ticking on them all.